With $1500 and a broken 16-track recorder, Fragile Jack crawled into a friend’s basement studio and created National Bag (1998). The album captures the raw energy and intensity of their live shows, featuring their trademark twangy, uptempo rock (check out "Ground Speed" or "Cigarette Star"), balanced by a couple of weepers that are perfect for a long drive home from the bar. Lyrically, the topics range from back-water politics, as in “County Fair," to the flip side of the American dream in the title track; to soured relationships, as in the lonesome ballad “Slow Dance;” to the wild search for a lost dog in the raucous hidden track “Sugarbeet Bitch”—an overwhelming fan favorite. The song “Ground Speed” gained the band national attention when it was chosen for a nationwide ad campaign for the Polo Jeans Company, featuring them alongside other top unsigned bands.
